Racks are most ideal for small to medium burrowing colubrids. If a snake is going to be hidden most of the time the pleasure of having it on display in a terrarium is diminished, in my opinion. Provided the snake in question can comfortably live in a sweater box or smaller, the box is easily removed and taken to a sink for cleaning.



If you're breeding and have a large group of a given species, lidless racks are ideal for doing water changes quickly and/or feeding. I used to keep a large group of snakes in lidless rack systems. I would feed them on Sunday evenings and then Monday mornings I could quickly go through and removed all the uneaten rodents and take them out to the trash (local garbage service picked up Monday mornings). If I had had every snake in a terrarium it would have taken much longer to remove all the uneaten rodents.



As snakes get larger the advantages diminish, in my opinion. If the boxes are large you often end up cleaning them while they're half open which is not much more of an advantage over a terrarium. Also, large boxes tend to flex a bit when in a rack and the efficiency of use goes down slightly.



But provided the species in question does not require special lighting, lidless rack systems almost always conserve a tremendous amount of space. I can't remember the exact numbers but I once had 45 snakes or so in less than 6 linear feet of wall space. Try doing that with terrariums.



Racks are also very engery efficient heat wise.



Many species also seem to do better when kept in "tight" lidless racks vs. more open terraria. There are numerous anecdotes supporting this from the private sector and from zoos.



On the downside, racks often don't have as much ventilation as terrariums and quickly grow mold. For species that spend a lot of time crawling in out out of their water bowls this can lead to a lot of mold growth. But there is no excuse for this. Small section of the box can be routed out and screen can be attached with rivets and hot glue to increase ventilation.



Hope this helps.

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